Meet Opera Coast, a web browser exclusively designed for the iPad, and today the iPhone. Opera Coast is an intuitive mobile browser, stripped down, yet optimized to make internet browsing a lot easier.
“Like everyone who owns an iPhone, I’ve often picked it up when waiting for something or someone,” says Huib Kleinhout, product manager on the Opera Coast project at Opera Software. “I was never quite happy with how apps and browsers kind of got in the way of the content. With Opera Coast, we have made content the main star of the show, letting the browser app itself get out of the way when you just want to kill some time. It’s the way web was meant to be enjoyed.”
Opening Coast is much like opening any other app. There is a Home Screen, which contains web browsing elements, such as: A search and address field, site tile grid or “stuff we like” (shortcut of popular sites or personal added pages), newly opened sites that are not on the grid, and access to recent sites.
What Opera did was it took the unconventional road and developed a deviation from the traditional address bar we were accustomed to. With Coast, users can simply make a swipe gesture on the top part of the home screen to launch a search screen. As the user inputs an address, search term, or keywords, suggested or matching sites pop-up below (popular ones usually appear first). Apart from a minimalist interface, Coast also comes with under-the-hood security. What happens is when Coast detects that a website might not be secure, it flashes a warning to inform the user.
Navigation in Coast is basically done with Gesture controls. It’s easy and perfect for single-hand operation. Users can also sync site tiles between the iPhone and the iPad automatically via iCloud.
Learn more about Opera at www.opera.com.